Lowell Point

December was crazy and this was one of two posts from mid-month that got lost somewhere before the holidays and Las Vegas. The predictions were for some of the highest tides of the year around daybreak, so I headed way before dawn to Camano and Port Susan for a brisk and quick - very brisk, very quick - morning trip. As is often the case on these relatively calm, cold mornings, the tide is restrained by the high pressure, so my hope to see the water washing the drift logs off the beach failed to materialize. But what a beautiful morning.

Lowell Point is the low barrier beach at Camano Island State Park (click on title of post to go to Google Maps). A high bluff to the south supplies gravel to beaches from here all the way to Utsalady (including Cama Beach). The waves had tossed up a nice little gravel ridge, marking the morning's high tide. The stormier tides from earlier in the weekend had been higher. The lagoon - or what's left of it - was flooded and frozen. There are differing opinions on whether Lowell Point was an open tidal lagoon before the 1900s - if there was an inlet, it would have probably been down near the boat ramp at the north end.